


memento vivere

by catdead_detailslater



Category: Evil Dead (Movies), Evil Dead - All Media Types, Re-Animator (Movies)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Blood and Gore, Canon-Typical Violence, Crossover, Humor, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Canon, Recreational Drug Use, Slow Burn, Strangers to Lovers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-21
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2020-07-09 21:17:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19894480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catdead_detailslater/pseuds/catdead_detailslater
Summary: Ash Williams gives a stranger a hand, and the stranger offers to give him one back.





	memento vivere

_...ty prison. If you believe any suspect has… near your area, inform local authorities._

The radio faded in between chunks of static as the Delta rolled down the dark, dirt roads of rural Michigan, metal trailer banging and scraping against every uneven rock and pothole in its path. 

“Quiet down back there,” Ash said to no one, bringing his can of lukewarm beer back up to his lips. 

The move from Flint hadn’t been an easy one. The neighbors at his trailer park had been more than kind, and management at the local ValueStop hadn’t been too bad, either. In fact, for the first time since he left Elk Rapids, he was starting to feel at home-- which was exactly why he had to pack up and leave. 

It had been years since the evil had found him, but he knew it was there. Maybe a little less prominent and a hell of a lot less powerful than it had been back in the 1300s, but it was there, ready to rear its ugly head the moment he got too comfortable. Once he began to recognize names and faces, he knew it was time to move on; or otherwise suffer the indignity of having to hose their remains off the sides of his trailer when they were eventually possessed, and had to be killed.

Detroit, on the other hand, had been a bust. The ValueStop he thought was established there had been closed and bought out by another company, and he was almost certain he saw a corpse in an alleyway on his way to the store. While that wasn’t exactly an odd sight for him, it wasn’t one he wanted to experience regularly. 

And so Lansing became his next stop. The city was only about an hour and a half from Detroit, but Ash had opted to ride the state line in order to give himself some time to breathe. No cities, no traffic, no people; just him, a discounted 12-pack, and the open, unpaved road.

Or so he thought.

Ash slowed as the figure of a man entered his headlights, slouched and shuffling beside the dirt path. As he rolled closer, he could see that the man was strangely well dressed, from a button up and tie to now dusty dress shoes and slacks. With a large black bag in hand, someone might have even mistook him for a lawyer or a businessman-- had it not been for the blood and grime smattered across his shirt.

It wasn’t until the Delta began to pass him that the man looked up, locking eyes with him. From a brief glance, Ash could tell that he wasn’t that old, or even that particularly haggard-- just dirty, and tired.

A few thoughts came to Ash’s mind. He thought about the time his dad had made him walk home from church, because he had ripped Cheryl’s dress during service. He thought about the hitchhikers Scott had blown off as he drove him and his friends up to the cabin, on what was supposed to be a weekend getaway. He thought about waking up after hundreds of years, having to walk for miles just to get to the nearest town and be arrested for murders he didn’t commit.

He didn’t know why, but before he realized it, Ash was pulling the car over.

The man didn’t hesitate to get in the car once it had stopped, pulling himself into the passenger side and shutting the door in one swift motion. He placed his bag between his feet before buckling up, resuming an unnaturally straight posture. 

“Where’re you headed?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“How about Lansing?”

“That’s fine.”

Ash took the car out of reverse and put it back in drive, the trailer creaking as if in protest of being in motion again. The two were quiet as Ash pulled the Delta back onto the road, the soft sound of static and garbled voices being the only thing to cut the silence.

“Ash Williams, by the way.”

“Dr. Howard Phillips,” the man said, flashing the plastic-covered ID dangling from his shirt pocket.

“A doctor, huh? I suppose that explains the blood, then.”

“A patient was badly injured, and reacted violently to treatment. I admit, it wasn’t the best night for my car to break down.”

Ash looked down at the ID again from the corner of his eye. He could tell, even with the dim lighting of the dashboard, that the photo printed on it wasn’t of his passenger; and his hours of driving the long, empty back roads told him that the man was lying about the car, too. 

“Y’know, you look a lot younger in that photo,” Ash remarked. 

“It was taken years ago.”

“A lot blonder, too.”

The stranger’s head suddenly snapped up, his expression cold and fierce. 

“Mister Williams,” he began, with a tone of strictness that Ash had only ever heard from his college professors, “I would prefer not to be interrogated during this trip.” 

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Ash said sarcastically. “I just thought that I could ask you some things, seeing as I’m driving you around in _my car_.”

“You didn’t have to,” the stranger quickly pointed out. 

Ash slowly turned to face the man, his expression screwed up into one of manic anger. 

“Yeah, you’re _WELCOME!_ ” 

The man stared at him for a few seconds before calmly looking back out the windshield, completely unaffected. Ash cycled between anger, bewilderment, and anger again at whirlwind speeds, completely baffled by the other man’s behavior.

In his fit of silent rage, Ash eventually reached over with his good hand and began aggressively fumbling with the radio. The first working channel to come through was a music station, which had just begun to play _Genius of Love_. Ash cranked the volume obnoxiously high and stepped on the gas, hoping to get some rise out of his ungrateful passenger. But the man remained silent still, even as the Tom Tom Club’s lyrics were blasted over the car. 

_♫ What you gonna do when you get out of jail?_

_(I'm gonna have some fun)_

_What do you consider fun?_

_(Fun, natural fun)_ _♫_


End file.
